Through Long Days of Labor
by Ayezur
Summary: "Through long days of labor/and nights devoid of ease." It hurts, coming back to life, but not many people get to do it twice. Kenshin, Kaoru, and a long-earned peace.
1. my heart in the shape of a begging bowl

**A/n: because the only appropriate response to Reflections is the double bird. For the record, I am sticking mainly to manga canon but adding some stuff from the anime when it works, so this is post-Jinchuu.**

**Shout-out to my girl Alina, who provides invaluable moral support in between talking me into doing things against my better judgement.**

* * *

"…and so little Suzume looked up at us, after all that trouble, and she yawned and said 'grandpa, why am I under the floor?' No memory at all! That's how we learned she sleepwalks." Dr. Oguni chuckled, setting down his tea. "Oh, what a time that was. Well, it all turned out for the best in the end, didn't it?"

"It surely did, that's so." Kenshin nodded, and only a very old man, wise in the ways of the young, would have noticed his slightly-too-tight grip on the cup of tea. "How old is little Suzume now? Almost four, this one believes."

"Oh yes, yes, she'll be four this fall. She was three when you two met, isn't that so?"

"That's so, it is."

The doctor sighed and clucked his tongue. "Children grow up so fast. It seems only yesterday she was running around chasing soap bubbles from the laundry. But they are a blessing. Now, whatever was it that you invited me over to discuss?"

"Ah." Kenshin put his cup down and bent forward slightly, rubbing the back of his neck. "That matter is – there is the issue – that is, concerning – this one – "

He took a deep breath, put his hands on the tatami, and bowed low.

"Honored Doctor Oguni, this unworthy one would beg you to do him the favor of serving as go-between in the matter of proposing a union between his family and Miss Kaoru Kamiya!"

He blurted it all out in one breath, all the words he'd so carefully rehearsed that morning, and then froze. This was not, strictly speaking, proper. It should be his parents or remaining relatives asking, not him, but he didn't know who they had been and Master Hiko was unlikely to bother leaving his mountaintop to attend to his idiot apprentice's domestic woes. So there was no other option, and surely the doctor would grant points for effort? He had done everything else right – the invitation, tea and sweets, a small gift to show his appreciation…

It wasn't as though Miss Kaoru would have cared, not really. But it mattered to him, and he wanted to do things the _proper_ way. For her sake, too, because he had seen how she lingered to look in the shop windows on the way to market, and he knew she sometimes felt like less of a woman because of her kenjutsu and her bad cooking and her temper and her perfect, vibrant liveliness and –

Focus. The doctor was responding.

"Goodness me, I thought you'd never get around to it! Sit up, sit up now."

Kenshin sat up.

"There, that's better. Such a production! Now, then, let me think. I don't believe little Kaoru has any living relatives – well, perhaps some very distant cousins in Osaka, but I don't think the Tokyo Kamiya family has had anything to do with them in three generations, there's no filial duty there. I suppose that means I'll be approaching her directly. Although perhaps Mr. Kamiya left instructions as to who would stand as her father if the question of marriage should arise. We'll have to check his will, Miss Kaoru and I. I'm quite happy to serve as go-between, Mr. Himura, quite happy." He chuckled to himself again. "It'll be good practice for when my grandchildren are grown, hmm?"

Kenshin could only blush and thank him profusely in response.

* * *

It had been the pension that had decided him. He'd been owed one for some time, due to his services during the Revolution. He'd never claimed it. This wasn't that pension; Yamagata's letter had made very clear. This was for Shisho, and Enishi; for protecting Japan, not for killing the government's enemies.

_Give it to charity if you wish,_ his letter had ended. _But please accept this, Mr. Himura, from one veteran to another, as a very small token of the debt that is owed to you – for what you have done, and for the burdens you have been forced to carry._

It had been a kind thought, and he had already been considering what to do with the money – the dojo always needed repairs, and perhaps there would be enough left over for a meal to properly celebrate Miss Kaoru's next birthday – when he had looked at the actual sums involved and had to sit down very suddenly.

The numbers involved weren't huge. He'd never be rich, and that was fine. But it was enough – just this, alone, not factoring in the money Miss Kaoru earned from teaching and the pension she still received from her father's military service – to marry on. To raise a family on.

Kenshin had swallowed very hard at the realization.

He knew that Miss Kaoru loved him, and he… love was not the word. Did a person love the blood in their veins, or the beat of their heart? She was essential. Absolutely essential. And it was one thing to know that and yearn silently, knowing that he had _nothing_ to offer her except the work of his bloody hands, and quite another to feel all that – longing and unworthiness – but also know that now, at the very least, he could provide for her as a man should.

With this development, he became his only obstacle. He was the one thing standing between himself and a future that was all her: walking beside her, chattering in the kitchen, laundry and groceries and gardening, waking every morning to her scent lingering on the pillows and a passel of children with their mother's clear blue eyes.

He'd hunched over slightly, stricken at the vision and terrible ache it cause.

Was he permitted to want such a thing, now? A small, selfish happiness.

He had sat and thought for a long time, while the shadows lengthened and the laundry went undone, until he'd been startled from his meditations by the gate swinging open for Miss Kaoru's return.

"Kenshin! I'm home!" She'd rounded the corner and stopped, taking in his obvious lack of activity. "…is something the matter?"

And he'd seen the fear on her face, then – _what now? Will he leave again? Will I lose him?_ – and understood that sometimes, selfishness could be selfless, too. And he'd smiled.

"Ah, nothing's wrong, that is," he'd said, laughing. "This one was only thinking about something, that I was."

"Eh? What was it?"

"Nothing to concern you now, Miss Kaoru, no it's not." He'd shaken his head, amazed at his own foolishness. "The laundry will have to be done tomorrow, it seems. This one will begin dinner, that I will."

"Alright, then," she'd said, and smiled _that _smile.

* * *

Koushijiro Kamiya, as it turned out,_ had_ left someone to stand in his place should anyone ever ask for his daughter's hand. Which is how Kenshin found himself sitting nervously in the sitting room of the Maekawa home one week later, wearing a brand new hakama and haori he'd only managed to buy by reminding himself that this was much more for Miss Kaoru's sake than his own. They were still stiff, and he shifted uncomfortably as they scratched over his skin.

Dr. Oguni nudged him.

"Don't worry so. You'll make a bad impression."

"Mr. Maekawa and this one are already acquainted, that we are…"

"Ah, but now he stands in her father's place. It's a completely different situation."

"Excuse me, excuse me." Mrs. Maekawa bobbed her head as she shuffled in, bearing a tray of tea and sweets. She set the tray down and settled herself on the cushion across from him, beaming. "Well! What a lovely thing to see you here, Mr. Himura. My dear husband will be along in just a moment. How is little Kaoru? I hardly see her anymore! And you, Doctor, how are your grandchildren?"

He let her and Dr. Oguni make conversation, the words washing over him as he sipped his tea and answered politely at the appropriate intervals. His senses were strained, waiting for the first hint of Mr. Maekawa's approach, and the knot growing in his gut tightened when he finally detected the soft step of his feet along the hallway.

"Mr. Himura." He ducked as he came into the room, settling himself next to his wife, and fixed Kenshin with a stern look. Kenshin swallowed.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Maekawa," he said, voice steady.

"Good afternoon, Miyauchi," Dr. Gensai said cheerfully. "Your wife makes excellent tea."

"Why, thank you, doctor!" Mrs. Maekawa beamed.

"Ah? I'm glad you're enjoying it. And you, Mr. Himura. What do you think of my wife's tea?"

"It's – it's wonderful, that it is," he said weakly, fully aware that he'd barely tasted it. Mrs. Maekawa hid a giggle behind her hand and whispered to her husband. His face softened almost imperceptibly.

"So," he said, turning his attention to Dr. Oguni. "What is it that you wanted to discuss?"

"Ah, it's a simple matter," the doctor said, patting Kenshin on the shoulder. Pat… pat… pat… "Mr. Himura here asked me to serve as go-between, you see…"

Mr. Maekawa's gaze sharpened.

Pat… pat… pat…

"Oh?"

"Oh yes. Although due to certain circumstances arising from the Revolution he has no family to speak for him, it seems he wishes very much to join the Kamiya family and wants to do things as formally as he can, given the situation."

"Oh my!" Mrs. Maekawa exclaimed. "Isn't that gallant, dear? Don't you agree?"

"Hmm. Yes. Very gallant."

Kenshin shrank under Mr. Maekawa's relentless glare. Somewhere in the back of his mind, his common sense was babbling that even though the Hiten Mitsurugi would be ineffective soon, for the moment he was still one of the strongest swordsmen in Japan, and he should _not_ be feeling like Master Hiko'd just caught him with his hand in the sweet jar. At least Dr. Oguni had stopped patting him.

_Now he's standing in place of her father_, the doctor had said. _It's completely different_.

He blinked, and the outline become clear: two old friends, one who lives and one who dies, and the daughter left behind; too old to adopt and too young to leave to her own devices. If Mr. Kamiya had left Mr. Maekawa to stand in his stead in his will, then legally Miss Kaoru was answerable to him – but he had never exerted that authority, knowing that it wasn't what his old friend would have wanted. He had watched, instead, and worried for her, and helped as much as he could, and now he had one last duty to his old friend's memory.

Which happened to be putting the fear of god into the upstart asking for her hand.

It was only a kind of game, after all; and he was nervous because any prospective bridegroom would be.

Kenshin bowed his head.

"This one knows that the current situation is inadequate. However, it seems as though Miss Kaoru would want things done this way, and so it is hoped that you will overlook the circumstances."

"Is that so?"

Kenshin nodded. "This one did not previously possess the ability to fully provide for Miss Kaoru as a husband should. Therefore, it was not possible to court her. Recently, that has changed, and with the current income – " he named the sum and Mrs. Maekawa nodded approvingly. " – this one is capable of providing for Miss Kaoru's happiness and comfort. Therefore, this unworthy one humbly requests your consideration in the matter."

Mr. Maekawa made a contemplative noise. His wife shifted and he grunted slightly, as though someone had jabbed him in the side.

"Her happiness, eh?"

"Yes." Now Kenshin raised his head and looked Mr. Maekawa directly in the eyes, his earlier nerves faded. There was only one response. "This one has only ever desired Miss Kaoru's happiness."

"Well," Mr. Maekawa said finally. "If that's the case, I'll speak to Kaoru. Since you've been her tenant for so long, I don't know if there's much need for more than her approval. Mind you," he said warningly, "she gets the last word on the subject. That's what Koushijiro wanted."

"Understood." Kenshin bowed again. "Thank you very much."

"Have some of the sweets," Mr. Maekawa said. "My wife made them."

* * *

When he got home from market next week, after Miss Kaoru's usual visit to the Maekawa dojo, she wasn't waiting at the gate for him but was standing just inside, and before he had a chance to say anything she threw her arms around him and started gasping out a stream of acceptance and recrimination.

He wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair, and whispered _I'm home._


	2. let me come into the storm

The women were taking over.

News of the impending nuptials had spread throughout the neighborhood via some mysterious female telepathy and the neighbors were coming to the dojo in droves to offer congratulations and advice. It had driven Kenshin into hiding in the kitchen, where he sent out tea and sweets at the appropriate intervals and limited his interactions to what courtesy required.

It wasn't that he was unhappy with the situation; Miss Kaoru was clearly luxuriating in being the center of attention, and it warmed him to know that she was so loved. But he had chores to do, and there was laundry going undone and dirt piling up in corners while they played host to a seemingly endless stream of people, most of whom he had never met.

And, frankly, it was embarrassing how many people had _noticed_. Rumors were one thing, quite inevitable and nothing to worry about, but this was ridiculous. No one knew the details – no one knew _that name_ – but it was apparently common knowledge that little Kaoru's mysterious boarder was a terrifically strong swordsman who'd served on the side of the Imperialists during the Revolution and made several terrible enemies who he'd had to defend dear Kaoru from, which was what that horrible scare with her supposed death had been about, you know, and he was friendly with important government officials and an assistant to the police; clearly a man to take seriously, and wasn't she _lucky_ to catch a husband with those kinds of connections? Even if he was a little strange…

Kenshin sighed heavily as he poured the fifth pot of tea that day alone. Clearly, he was going to have to start paying more attention to what people said about him.

And all the bustle had stolen away the evenings, too. There had been a time just after dinner, when it was too early to sleep and too late to do anything useful, when everyone would gather on the porch to drink tea or sake and talk about the day. And then eventually Yahiko would wander off to bed, Sano would depart to continue his evening elsewhere, and it would only be him and Miss Kaoru on the porch, silently finishing their sake or tea, and sometimes she would talk and sometimes she wouldn't but he would always listen.

But Sano was gone and Yahiko had moved out, and as soon as it grew too late for visitors Miss Kaoru and Ms. Sekihara – who was so involved in planning the wedding that she had practically moved in – would go on rampage, inventorying the dojo and ransacking the storage shed and poring over bits of cloth and menus and muttering about trousseaus and flower arrangements and the dozens of little details that were apparently essential to a wedding with all the trimmings.

They were currently involved in a heated, days-long dispute over whether or not to incorporate some of the fashionable new Western customs into the ceremony. Kenshin had found himself dragged in to bolster both sides on more than one occasion despite the fact that he had no opinion whatsoever – except that he did rather devoutly hope they didn't decide that he should publicly kiss the bride to end the ceremony. There were limits to this Western craze, after all, and he would hope that keeping bedroom activities _in the bedroom_ would be one of them. He had yet to voice this opinion, however, as that particular custom had not come up and he knew better than to tempt fate.

They had set a date, at least. This had involved a visit from the local fortune teller, who had spilled ink on the tatami as she set up her charts and grumbled darkly when Kenshin confessed that he was only vaguely certain as to the year he was born in, and couldn't begin to guess the month or day or hour. She had hemmed and hawed and asked him several general questions and few too many personal ones, eventually assigning him a "most likely" horoscope for the sake of her calculations. Then she had gone away for several days, during which Miss Kaoru managed to work herself into a quiet panic over the possible results. He'd had no idea how to calm her other than to remind her that since half the necessary information was improvised, it probably wouldn't be all that accurate. It worked like a charm the first time; it might have settled the issue, actually, if she hadn't extrapolated from that the possibility that a _positive _result could actually be _negative _one and how could he possible manage not to know _his own birthday, Kenshin, you IDIOT!_

At that point he had deemed it prudent to make a tactical retreat.

But when the fortune teller returned, she had assured them that she had run through several variations based on the most likely birth dates – which was why it had taken so long – and she was confident that their union was well-omened. Then she had delivered the auspicious date. It was in the spring, several months away. Plenty of time to plan a wedding, in his mind, but apparently Kaoru disagreed, because she'd launched immediately into preparations and moaned about not having nearly enough time.

"Kenshin!" Miss Kaoru was calling him from the hallway. "Kenshin!"

"Yes?"

"We won't need the tea. Mrs. Nakamoto and Mrs. Hayashi couldn't stay that long after all."

"Ah? That's a shame, so it is. When will you and Ms. Sekihara want dinner, then?"

"Tae's gone home, she needs to do some work… it's only us tonight, Kenshin." She was flushed slightly, from the heat of the kitchen and excitement of the day, and he ducked his head to avoid staring too hard at the way her skin glowed and her eyes sparkled.

"That will be nice, that it will," he said placidly, kneeling down to take out the miso and rice. It would be better than nice, actually; it would be downright paradisiacal. "No Yahiko, either?"

"No, he's staying home tonight…"

"Well, then. Dinner should be ready in an hour, it should. Is that alright?"

"It's fine..." There was a strange catch in her voice, a sentence she wanted to say but wouldn't release. "Um… Kenshin?"

"Yes, Miss Kaoru?" He stood and faced her where she knelt on the tatami just outside the kitchen. "Is something the matter?"

"N-no, nothing's the matter. I just thought… do you want to do anything, after dinner? Together, I mean."

"Oh." His brain kicked into gear. _Oh!_ "Perhaps a walk?" It was the only thing he could think of immediately. "It's a full moon tonight, so it is."

She seemed obscurely disappointed by the suggestion, and he hesitated for a moment before adding, carefully, "This one has missed spending time with you, so I have. Since you've been so busy with the wedding, and this one has little to contribute to the planning, that is…"

They were affianced now, weren't they? He was allowed to say that kind of thing. And from the way she blushed and smiled happily, he'd done something right.

"Alright, then," she said, and left him to make dinner in peace.

* * *

They walked side-by-side, not quite touching, in night air already chill with frost. Winter would be here soon. The moon lit up the sky and cast the world in silvered black and soft grays, and the ripples on the river in moonlight sparkled like unexpected diamonds in the shadows of the trees.

Miss Kaoru had talked a little at first, about the wedding plans and how Yahiko was training at the Maekawa dojo for now, since she was so preoccupied, and how he'd reported back to her that some of the students there were asking him about Kamiya Kasshin Ryu and whether or not she was a good teacher.

"I'm sure he gave them an earful," she'd sniffed. "Troublemaking little brat."

"Now, now," he'd said, laughing a little, "Yahiko is an honest boy, that he is, for all he has a bad mouth."

She'd smiled slightly. "I know," she'd said, and left it at that, but the mingled pride and sorrow in her face added _let me have my troublesome student for a while longer; let him be my almost- brother forever; let me stop time for just a little bit more._

He'd taken her hand and held it, briefly; she'd squeezed his hand in return and they'd walked on in silence.

In time they came to the low bank he'd spent too many days fishing from, usually in vain. And when he did manage to catch something, it always seemed to be catfish. If he didn't know better, he'd suspect a conspiracy.

"Isn't this where you fish?" she asked.

"So it is."

She left the path and picked her way gingerly down the slope. He followed, ready to catch her if she fell; but she made it without any difficulty and sat down on the grass, legs curled beneath her. He stayed standing, one hand resting lightly on his sword.

"It's so pretty…" she said, looking out at the river and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. He followed the curve of her fingers traced. "The moon, and the water… Kenshin, do you think the cherry blossoms will be blooming this spring?"

_They bloom every spring_, he almost said, and then caught her real meaning. "It's in April, isn't that so?" he said, and even though it had been five years since they began changing the calendar it was still strange to think in these harsh Western divisions the ignored the moon and stars. "The blossom season starts then, so it does. This one doesn't see why they wouldn't be in bloom…"

"That's true." That cheered her, and she drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. "Thank you for being so patient, Kenshin. With the wedding and all."

He blinked, surprised. She was blushing again.

"I know it's inconvenient," she continued. "But – well – to tell the truth – you know, I've been dreaming about my wedding since I was a little girl." She started fiddling with her kimono sleeves, staring at the ground. "So I wanted to thank you, for putting up with it – "

"It's not an inconvenience, that it's not," he said abruptly, sitting down next to her. "Not at all."

She looked at him from the corner of her eyes. "Really?"

"Really." He resolved, quietly, to do a better job of hiding his irritation. "And even if it were…" He took her hand, then, and her fingers curled around his and his around hers, trapping each other lightly as children holding butterflies.

"Even if it were," he continued, "this unworthy one would not mind, I would not. It wouldn't be such a great inconvenience, since Miss Kaoru is enjoying herself so much, that you are."

"Oh." She smiled and rested her head on his shoulder, and he stopped breathing for half a heartbeat. Then he relaxed, slowly, and let go of her hand to curl his arm around her waist. She was his fiancée, after all.

She pressed herself fully against him, her freed hand tangling in his clothing, and he marveled, as he could never help doing, at her absolute faith in him, at the eyes that never saw blood on his hands and the ears that never heard the word _man-slayer_, at the brightness that never dimmed no matter how darkly his past cast its shadow.

"My father and I used to watch the stars together," she said, looking up at them. "We'd make up stories about them. His were always better than mine." She seemed to sigh, then. "…I wish he could have met you."

He tightened his arm around her and if his heart was beating a little faster than normal, no one but him needed to know.

"Will you tell me about the stars?" he asked, without quite meaning to or exactly knowing why, except that it was part of her and there was nothing of her that wasn't precious.

"Hmm?"

"The stories Miss Kaoru's father told. This one would like to hear them."

"Well…" she shifted against him. "You see the two triangles, connected?" Her hand lifted to trace the outline, pale against the blue night sky.

He nodded. "The kimono sleeve."

"Well, actually, you see, long ago, there were two brothers, both warriors in service to the same lord…"

She told him the story of the two brothers who ended up on opposite sides of the battlefield; then the story of the princess born of bamboo, who ascended to the moon in a chariot; then of a poor woman who did a kindness to an injured fox, and earned abundance in return; and with each story they curled closer together, warming each other. And when the chill was eventually too much and it was time to go home, nothing seemed more natural than to stay close to one another.

* * *

He walked her to her room and they lingered for a moment outside it. She clasped her hands behind her back, eyes cast downward, and he waited patiently because he didn't want to leave, not yet. Not ever.

"Well…" she said finally. "Good night."

She looked up, then, eyes wide in the darkness. She was backlit by the soft lamp in her bedroom and his head was suddenly full of static, his throat dry and his tongue thick as he took in the shadows of her collarbone where her kimono had fallen just a little bit open. The soft moue of her lips. The curve of her neck and the slope of her shoulders…

He knew that he was supposed to take a step back, now, to bid her goodnight with longing in his eyes and walk to his room on the other side of the house and shut himself there until morning.

He wanted to follow her into her room.

She straightened her shoulders suddenly, as though she was bracing herself for a blow. Then she leaned in and kissed him lightly on the cheek; just a soft brush of lips on skin, trailing jasmine in its wake.

"Sleep well," she murmured, and he broke.

His arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her flush against him, hip-to-hip, and even through all the layers of cloth he could feel her small breasts against his chest. She squeaked a little, startled, and he realized too late that he'd pinned her arms against her side. His hand fisted in the cloth covering her back and he pressed his face into the sweet curve where her neck and shoulder met, breathing her in. Jasmine and sweat and cold night air and _Kaoru_… he mouthed her name against the border between her kimono and her skin, hot and shaking with want, and he knew that she could feel it and he didn't care.

"Kenshin? I – I…"

Her voice, thin and uncertain, brought him back to himself and he sprang away, bowing.

"Forgive this unworthy one, Miss Kaoru – "

"No!" She was flushed and unsteady, clutching at the collar of her kimono. "I – I mean – it's only – until the wedding."

"Yes. Absolutely. The wedding, so it is. Until then. Not before, no. Absolutely not." He was trying not to look at her but he couldn't help noticing her dilated eyes and the way her mouth was open slightly and oh god – "Good night, Miss Kaoru! This unworthy one will see you in the morning, I will!"

"Yes! Of course! In the morning!" She bobbed a quick bow back at him. "Good night!"

He turned tail and fled for his room, and did not sleep well at all.

* * *

The next morning, he burned breakfast. But Miss Kaoru barely took two bites before she turned bright red and hurried to the dojo, muttering something about training, so it didn't matter that much anyway.


	3. and the heart must pause

Snow fell lightly from the clouded sky, dusting Kenshin's hair and sticking for a moment against his skin before melting. He adjusted the load of bamboo on his shoulder and pushed on, treading carefully on the muddy pathway.

It was strange to be meeting the New Year without Sano and Megumi there, and with Yahiko… not gone, but finding his own way. The wedding plans had kept the house so busy and full of people that he hadn't realized how empty it was now, just himself and Miss Kaoru rattling around without the others to cushion their impact on one another.

He'd only had a few days alone with Miss Kaoru before Yahiko had arrived, then Sano in short order after that. And those few days alone with her had been… well. He had never intended to stay in the first place, had intended to give his name and go despite what she'd said – because some deep-buried part of him wanted her to have it, wanted _someone_ to remember Kenshin Himura when time had forgotten the wanderer and left only the assassin. He was under no particular illusions about what his place in history would be.

At least, that was what he'd told himself at the time.

Yet he hadn't. It would be easy to say that his body disobeyed him, that the words left his mouth without his consent, but that would be a lie. He had done it. Because… because that was what he had done. _Sometimes_, his master had told him once, _people just do things_.

So he hadn't walked away, and had spent the days that followed in a kind of anticipatory daze, waiting for whatever it was that was going to go wrong to hurry up and go wrong already. Even though they had lived under the same roof they hadn't really _lived alone together_; there was always a complicated shadow between them.

That shadow was gone, now.

Miss Kaoru didn't meet him at the gate. She had spent most of the day cleaning for the New Year and assigned him the task of making the pine and bamboo decorations. He'd assumed that he was meant to do most of the decorating, as well, if only to give her the pleasure of changing it all once she'd finally had a look at it.

He had just unloaded the bamboo and gathered the necessary supplies when he passed by the main gate and saw Ms. Sekihara standing there, waving him over.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Tae," he said, putting the equipment down near the bamboo and brushing his hands together as he met her. "Are you looking for Miss Kaoru?"

"Oh, no, no, isn't she cleaning for the New Year today?"

"That she is. Can this unworthy one help you?"

"Well, I'm having a year-forgetting party tonight at the Akabeko, and I was hoping to invite you and dear Kaoru. I know it's short notice but I'm afraid _dear_ little Yahiko forgot to deliver the invitation." Her practiced smile wavered slightly, and he winced for Yahiko.

"Ah, is that so? Well, this one doesn't know of any reason why we wouldn't be able to attend…"

She brightened and bowed slightly. "Oh, good. I'll expect to see you, then, ne? Now excuse me, please, I must be getting back."

"Of course, of course. This one is sure tonight will be wonderful, that I am," he said, bowing in return. Ms. Sekihara smiled and left, and he returned to the bamboo.

* * *

He told Miss Kaoru about the invitation over lunch (burnt rice and overcooked vegetables; she'd cooked it on her own and offered it with a look tangled somewhere between hope and humiliation, and he'd told her it was delicious and meant every word). She had fluttered – he'd never seen her _flutter_ before – and not even noticed the part about Yahiko's forgetfulness.

And now they stood outside the Akabeko in the light snowfall. Miss Kaoru was holding his arm. She had been since they left the dojo. She wore the blue kimono that brought out her eyes and he had reluctantly donned that new outfit he'd avoided wearing since he declared his intent, because he'd remembered that this was their first public appearance as, well, as a _pair_, and therefore his patched pink kimono and white hakama might send the wrong impression.

Even though the new clothing _was_ remarkably itchy. Three times through the wash and it had yet to soften…

He pulled at the collar. Miss Kaoru looked up at him.

"…Shall we go, then?"

She nodded.

The inside of the Akabeko was bright and warm and close, filled with the low chatter of Ms. Sekihara's guests. They had divided themselves roughly by gender, with the men's group having notably more empty sake bottles than the women. The women were playing the poem-matching game, while the men had abandoned theirs in favor of mutual puzzlement over a set of Western gambling cards. Yahiko was sitting with the men, flushed from more than just the heat of so many bodies close together.

"He's been _drinking_, the little twerp…" Miss Kaoru's grip on his forearm tightened. He put his hand over hers, instinctively, and the warmth of her skin tingled his cold fingertips.

"Now, now. It's a special occasion, that it is."

"Yes, but he has to walk home alone – !"

"Ms. Tae will surely let him sleep here if it comes to that, that she will."

Miss Kaoru sniffed and he stroked the back of her hand, just once, loving the snap in her eyes. Then they were noticed; Ms. Sekihara bustled over to greet them both and introduce them around. She was as proud of the two of them as if the wedding had been her idea in the first place, and when he realized the source of that pride – that she had seen the bond between them and tried to encourage it – he wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed that he'd done such a poor job of hiding it or grateful for her concern.

Eventually he settled on the last one. Miss Kaoru settled in among the women – glowing, laughing, the center of attention as any prospective bride should be – and he stood in the place where the women's group blended into the men's, not entirely certain what should happen next.

The Imperialists had thrown parties, now and again. To ease the stress, to let off steam; but even though he had attended, he'd never been able to lose himself as the others did. The gatherings had seemed strained and tainted things to him. He would leave as soon as courtesy would allow, and the sake they served him was bitter as gall.

"Kenshin! Oi!" Yahiko waved him over. "C'mon, siddo-own. Have s'mthin' t'drink!"

He hid a smile and sat down next to the boy, accepting the cup of sake his neighbor poured for him. He sipped once, to be polite, and set it down. Yahiko slugged back what remained in his cup, imitating Sano – if he'd been doing _that_ all night it certainly explained the state he was in – and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

"So y'r marryin' Ugly?" he asked abruptly. Kenshin nodded. Yahiko had been avoiding the dojo since the news, presumably to prevent being dragged into the whirl of feminine activity. But the look in the boy's eyes made him think there might be another reason.

"That I am."

Yahiko glared at him for a long second, then turned suddenly away. "_Good._"

"…oro?"

The boy's hands clenched a little and Kenshin saw the familiar lines of his soul: pride, and passion, and a terrible loneliness. So like himself, when he had been that age… although he was quite sure he'd never been _that_ rude, regardless of what Master Hiko said. Yahiko's mouth trembled slightly, and he bit the shaking away.

"…can't leave if y'r _married_…" Yahiko muttered. "Even if y'_do_ have to marry an ol' witch like her."

Kenshin blinked down at the child. Yahiko's head was bowed, and his shoulders tense. The younger boy swallowed, hard; Kenshin set his hand on the boy's shoulder, gently, like a father or a brother.

"This one does not intend to leave, Yahiko, that I do not," he said calmly. Yahiko looked up again.

"You better not."

Kenshin squeezed his shoulder reassuringly, and Yahiko leaned into it.

The evening wore on. Kenshin drank little and spoke less; Yahiko did not, and by the time things were winding down he had passed out with his head on Kenshin's knee. Kenshin let him stay there, drooling slightly, and listened to the conversation swirling around him.

"Oi, Himura?"

He looked up and blinked in the direction of the man who'd called his name. Mr. Nobuto, he thought; that or Mr. Hayashi.

"When's your wedding again?"

"April, that it is."

Mr. Nobuto – and he was sure that was who it was, now, Mr. Hayashi had more pronounced front teeth – sucked in a breath in surprise. "Didn't you just arrive in April…?"

"Oro?" He counted quickly on his hands, hiding them in his sleeves. "…ah, that's so. Yes, this one arrived in Tokyo in very early April."

"What a year can do, eh?" Mr. Nobuto said, elbowing the young man beside him. "Why, Shinji here was pining for years, and look where it got him. See, I told you, you have to move fast in these modern times. Women have minds of their own!"

Shinji buried his face in his hands, clearly mortified. "_Uncle_…"

"…ororo…?"

"Bad timing, bad timing, you kept saying, and then she went and got snapped up by a hero of the Revolution! Always too slow, Shinji, what do I keep telling you – "

"Uncle!" Shinji stood up suddenly, flushing bright red. "Don't you feel the need for some fresh air? _I do_."

He grabbed his uncle's arm and practically dragged him out of the Akabeko, the older man protesting all the way. Kenshin stayed where he was, stunned, and processed the news as best he could. It had not occurred to him that there might have been others – well, at least one other – that someone else might have seen what he saw and been entranced by those bright blue eyes.

The thought did not sit well with him. He glared at his sake, annoyed with himself. As if he had any right to jealousy; this would be his second marriage, after all. But knowing that didn't make the sick feeling in his stomach go away, or sweeten the sake when he took an experimental sip.

After a few moments, Shinji came back in – without his uncle – and knelt at Kenshin's side. Kenshin avoided looking at him, ashamed at his new and frankly unfounded dislike of the man.

"I'm sorry," Shinji blurted out. "Uncle was drunk. Kaoru and I – we never, _she_ never – you didn't _interfere_, even Uncle doesn't think that. I support your marriage," he said, bowing slightly. "Truly I do. I'm glad that she's happy. She hasn't – I haven't seen her smile like this since her father…"

And because Miss Kaoru had been mentioned, his eyes sought her out without thinking. She was curled against a wall, sake cup hanging loosely from her fingers. She was catching her breath, laughing, and for a heartbeat the universe was only him and her.

He turned to Shinji and smiled, shoving away the sickness.

"Now, now," he said, patting him on the shoulder once, amiably. "It was only the spirits that live in all sake bottles, was it not?" He shook his head ruefully. "Your uncle will regret tonight when he finds the headache waiting for him tomorrow, that he will. And words that were ill-chosen and meant no harm should be forgotten, should they not?"

"Yes. Absolutely. Mr. Himura." Shinji seemed to exhale. "Sir."

"Only Kenshin," he said gently – always gently, because it was not the boy's fault. "This one is only Kenshin."

* * *

Four nights later they stood in the courtyard of the local shrine, stamping their feet to stay warm. Himself and Miss Kaoru, Yahiko and Tsubame; Yahiko had brought her along for New Year's Eve, a quiet plea for acceptance: this is the time for family, and can't she be family to?

As if he'd needed to ask.

"It's _cold_," Miss Kaoru grumbled. "Why does it have to be so _cold?_"

He put his arm around her shoulders and she snuggled into his side. "It is winter, that it is," he observed, curling a little closer around her.

"That's no excuse," she muttered, and tucked her hands inside her sleeves.

"Huh. Some assistant master _you_ are," Yahiko sneered. His defiance was somewhat offset by his visible shivering. Tsubame glanced at him, clearly worried. Kaoru glared, and then apparently decided it wasn't worth the effort in this weather.

The crowd milled around them, talking in low susurrations. There was a small crowd around the amulet stall, trading old luck for new; many went directly from there to the fortune stall and the sacred pine tree. Another crowd – rather more lively – was clustered around the stand serving hot, sweet sake, and he happened to glimpse Shinji and his uncle in that crowd. The sick uneasiness squirmed awake in his gut, and he sighed briefly at his own childishness.

"Kenshin," Miss Kaoru tugged on his sleeve. "I want to go exchange my amulets…"

"Ah, yes, yes…"

They made their way over and he browsed idly through the offered charms while she paid the fee and handed over her old amulets. The shrine maiden winked and slid an extra charm into the new ones, over Miss Kaoru's protests, and she was blushing slightly as she returned to his side.

"Oh, Kenshin… sorry, but Mariko told me to give you this, and she's very persistent." She fished the extra charm out and handed it to him, ducking her head.

"It was kind of her to think of this one, that it was," he said. Miss Kaoru's behavior was a bit puzzling… and then he got a good look at the charm. It was a bright and vibrant red, with decorations picked out in gold embroidery: _a prayer for many children_. "Oro?"

"She also said that she expected to see us back this same time next year for the naming ceremony."

He coughed, slightly strangled, and tucked the charm away inside his sleeve. "That was considerate of her, that it was," he finally managed to say. "And we should remember her, that we should – when the time comes."

"Oh." Miss Kaoru took his arm again, and her blush deepened from mild embarrassment to pleasure. "I guess we should."

"Oi, Ugly!" Yahiko called from the hot-sake stand. "Hurry up before I give these away!" He was holding a small tray of drinks.

"So noisy…" She rolled her eyes, exasperated, and they joined the others.

A current began to run through the crowd as midnight drew near, excitement and a collective shedding-of-skin. Conversations took on a high, happy tone, a glittering joy at the end of the old and the dawning of the new. Another chance, for some; for others, the continuation of happiness.

Kenshin wasn't sure which category he fell into.

The shrine nearest the Kamiya dojo had a temple nearby, and the two had been combining their New Year celebrations for as long as anyone could remember. Around the time Kenshin was beginning to consider going back for a second serving of amazake, the monks began to file out of the temple and there was a sudden scramble for the bell.

"It's starting!" Miss Kaoru tugged him along and he let himself be pulled, laughing a little.

"Ah, there's no rush, that there is not…"

"But there's so many people!"

"And one hundred and eight strikes, that there is."

Nonetheless, they shuffled quickly into line as the monks struck up their chanting. The chatter of the crowd lowered to a dull murmur as the first few people stepped up to the bell and drew back the great log that served as a ringer. The master of ceremonies raised his hand, watching for some signal… and after a long moment, let it drop.

The bell tolled, once, low and sonorous, spreading out from the tower and hushing the crowd.

_Away with abuse…_

As the sound of the first toll faded into nothing, the second group took up position and rang the bell again.

_Away with aggression…_

Other bells were ringing in time with this one, all over Tokyo – all over Japan. _Away with ambition, with anger, with avarice, with baseness and blasphemy…_

On and on the bells rang out, driving away sin and singing the new year home.

When their group made it up to the bell tower, Kenshin wasn't really surprised to see that Shinji was in it. They ended up standing across from one another; the boy winced slightly when he recognized him and Kenshin smiled reflexively, not really meaning it.

The wood of the ringer was ancient and smooth as silk, worn by thousands of hands. He wondered how long the temple had stood already, and how much longer it would stand: long enough to see his children wed, his grandchildren named?

And then his smile became real, as he understood suddenly that he could hope for that, now.

Miss Kaoru's presence was a warm beacon at his back.

The monk's hand dropped, and he let go.

_Away with discord…_

As the bell tolled, he looked over at Shinji – _looked_, not glancing or smiling at the surface – and saw exactly what the boy had said would be there. What he had known he would find all along.

And what would it have mattered, really, if he had seen anything else? Out of all the men who may have been caught in her eyes, _he_ was the only one she'd chosen to keep.

The sickness eased.

"Happiness in the New Year," he said, and bowed to his fellow bell-ringers.

* * *

Yahiko declared his intent to stay up for the first dawn of the new year, but cold and exhaustion and the warmth of little Tsubame dozing at his side got the better of him. Only Kenshin and Miss Kaoru saw the sun rise, huddled together under a blanket for warmth and so that Yahiko wouldn't see them holding hands.

"Happiness in the New Year, Kenshin," Miss Kaoru said as the sun cleared the treetops.

"And to you," he said, raising her hand to his lips and not quite kissing the back of her fingers – only a quick press of his mouth to her skin. "…Kaoru."


	4. as fearlessly as an honored son

Master Hiko looked at him from across the room and sipped his tea slowly, savoring it. Kenshin shifted. His master's brows drew together.

"At least you can make a decent cup of tea," he said at length, and let the cup dangle from his fingertips. "Now then, student. Would you care to tell your master why the first I heard of this wedding was when I received the invitation last week?"

It had been Kaoru's idea to invite him, although they were both sure he wouldn't attend. _He's your master_, she'd said. _You owe him your life_. And he hadn't disagreed, so they had sent the invitation along with Misao's and Aoshi's and Okina's and the rest of the Aoiya's. They had thought no more on it until Kenshin had escorted Kaoru to the gate that morning and seen his master walking up the road, sake jug in hand and Kenshin had stared for too many heartbeats, forgetting to untangle their fingers. Master Hiko's sardonic gaze had rested on their joined hands and he'd said _so it wasn't a joke after all_ as he sketched a bow to Kaoru. _My condolences, young lady._

And Kaoru had left, because the wedding was the day after tomorrow and there were things to do, and he'd invited his master in for tea because what else could he possibly have done? Now they sat across from one another in the room outside the dojo, across from the courtyard, with the tea set in between them and Master Hiko's cloak spreading across the floor like spilled milk.

Kenshin exhaled. "Ah. Well. This one… that is to say, there was some uncertainty…"

"You thought I wouldn't take an interest in your future, was that it? That having passed on the final succession technique, I had no further investment in you?" Master Hiko snorted irritably. "Idiot."

Kenshin started to protest and his master quelled him with a glance. The older swordsman sipped his tea again, staring at Kenshin over the rim.

"You're not sleeping well, boy. Any particular reason?"

_The wedding_, he almost said, automatic and false. _It's been a bit stressful_. But even as he thought the excuse he could he hear his master snapping _don't __lie__ to me, you fool_, and the words shriveled on his tongue. He lowered his head to study the tatami.

"…bad dreams, Master."

It sounded so petty by the light of day.

"Hmph." Master Hiko turned the cup, examining it dispassionately. "What about?"

Kenshin closed his eyes.

_Smoke._

_Smoke, and blood in his eyes, and the scent of white plum…_

_Too slow, always too slow, smoke and white plum and that high ungrown-boy's voice 'for the purposes of my mortal justice, I must have your life.'_

_Not even enough time to scream._

_And her eyes, her eyes riveted on him even now trusting him to save her, to make it better as the blade slides home and she chokes and sputters on her own heartsblood even then she's telling him fix this, fix this I know you can._

_And then – _

Kenshin swallowed, hard, and did not look up.

"This one dreams… of Enishi's mortal justice, Master. Of… if he had not been so restrained… if Tomoe's memory had not served to guard Kaoru…"

_The house is empty and that's wrong. _

_There should be laundry hanging on the line. Where was the laundry? _

_The air is thick, heavy – no, that was him – like syrup or deep water, dragging him down. She's here, somewhere. Where is she? _

_Why is the house empty?_

_He stumbles slow and clumsy across the porch towards the doors that gape open like a wound and follows the scent of incense, of incense and white plum._

_She's there, beyond those doors and he doesn't want to go he doesn't want to see her why doesn't he want to see her? But his legs are moving slow and inevitable and the current is pulling him on._

_And she is._

_There._

_Incense burning in front of her memorial._

_Wrong. Wrong. It didn't happen this way this is wrong this __did not__ happen she was alive, she was alive I saw her, I felt her she held me in her arms and I was forgiven – _

_But there it is, black marble crossed by white lilies and the thin smoke rising from her altar and_

And then he'd wake with a strangled scream and lurch out of bed, falling tangled with the blankets.

His hands tightened where they rested on his thighs.

The first morning he had kicked off the blankets and scrambled to his feet as terror thrummed in his veins in time with his heart. He had torn the rice paper as he opened the shoji and not cared at all as he stumbled into the cold spring morning, searching for her, needing to know she was still real. He had found her, halfway to his room and concerned about the shouts she'd heard; he'd found her and clutched her to him like a child with a favorite doll.

She hadn't understood, not really, but she'd stroked his hair and murmured soothing nonsense until he finally relaxed against her, eyes shut tight, and convinced himself that it had only been a dream.

The second night he was better prepared, and did not scream. And the only sign that anything was wrong were the smudges under his eyes and the worry in Kaoru's face.

"Have you talked to your young lady about it?"

Kenshin looked up, confused. Master Hiko stared into his eyes for a brief moment and then gave him _that_ look, the my-only-heir-and-legacy-is-a-mouthbreathing-meebling-moron look, before he sighed heavily and set his cup aside.

"Apprentice. Attend."

He straightened his back automatically, riveting his attention on his master.

"The day after tomorrow, that woman will be your wife," Master Hiko instructed. "You will be bound to one another for the rest of your lives. She will share your bed and raise your children. You will protect her and provide for her. You will cease to exist as individuals and become one whole unit: a family, duty-bound to one another and to this house until the end of your lives. Is that what you want, apprentice?"

Kenshin blinked, staring. His throat worked and his stomach churned and the weight of his decision – that he'd made almost half a year ago, that he did not _regret_, that he _knew_ he did not regret – bore down on him.

"Master… this one does not…"

"Is that what you want or not? It's a very simple question."

"It is not a question of duty!" He was light-headed and hollow and torn with passions, like the intemperate child he'd thought he'd left behind.

His master raised an eyebrow.

"Oh? Then what is it?"

"It is that…" that he had been perishing by inches, some cold-blooded creature trapped in deep frost and waiting to die until she had hurtled out of the fog on that cold morning, sudden as a sunrise, and warmed him down to the bone. Until she had demanded his name and given it back to him, and made him whole again. "She… this one… that Kenshin Himura exists now, neither vagabond nor manslayer, is because of her. She is…"

Even now, he couldn't say the words.

Master Hiko sat back. "She is _what_, idiot boy?"

Kenshin clenched his fists, thumping one futilely against the top of his thigh, and could not say it. His master shook his head.

"Idiot," he said, and drank some more tea. "How did I raise you to be so dishonest?"

That stung, although it shouldn't have. He was tired, tired and raw and scared of the day after tomorrow, and he knew he shouldn't be and he was anyway. The moment stretched out between them. Kenshin counted the weave in the tatami, struggling with himself. Outside, the cherry blossoms were a riot of white and pink petals, and somewhere under them Kaoru was laughing and preparing for a life with him; a life bound to _him_, with his nightmares and bloody hands that would never be clean.

Finally, Master Hiko finished his tea.

"Kenshin," he said, and his voice was strange; in any other man, Kenshin would have called it gentle. "Do you know why I gave you the Hiten Mitsurugi style?"

Echoes. _I didn't teach you swordsmanship to make you miserable_. Kenshin shook his head, suddenly exhausted.

His master seemed to sigh, then. Kenshin started to speak, to protest or argue or something, and his master raised his hand and stopped him.

"Think, before you say anything."

Kenshin remembered: bruises and sweat and hard work and the clean ache of muscle and bone growing stronger and surer every day. Master's voice, irritated and snapping: _comb your hair, sit up straight, chew your food before you swallow_. _Hold that sword properly. _Large hands over his small ones, adjusting his grip. Showing him how to bind the blisters. That same hand on his forehead as he lay shivering with fever. _It's only a cold, idiot._

His master's eyes, watching him as he walked away, down the mountain into the world, and his master's hands that never made a move to stop him, never demanded that he stay.

Kaoru's eyes, darkened by shadow and lit by the fireflies.

Kaoru, standing framed in the setting sun. _I want to stay with you._

Kaoru, holding out her hand in the doorway. Kaoru, smiling. Laundry fluttering in the breeze. Sano and Yahiko squabbling over the last bit of fish as Kaoru sat back, shaking her head. Kaoru, sitting pressed against him with their hands entwined as the sun rose. Her strong hands that sheltered his heart and offered her own in return, demanding nothing.

_Welcome back._

_I'm home_.

Something was seeping in, past the old pain and the reflexive fears, past the doubt and he understood suddenly that this is what love is: to give the very best part of yourself away, expecting nothing in return.

"Master…" He swallowed, and then bowed his head. "…what if that isn't enough?"

Master Hiko snorted, getting to his feet.

"That's not your decision to make, fool," he said as he went to stand in the doorway, looking out into the courtyard, and there was no sting in his tone. "Now: answer the question."

"I love her," he said calmly, and realized it was the first time he'd allowed himself to put words to it.

"And?"

"And…" He thought of her eyes, lately, the worry for him that she did such a bad job of hiding, the hands that would rest lightly on his shoulder or elbow and then flutter away, afraid of overstepping. "…and we will be married, so we will."

"So?"

Kenshin recognized it for the prompt it was but couldn't quite follow through.

"So…" he started, and stopped. "So…"

His master waited, patiently, for him to say the words he already knew.

"So…" Kenshin said finally. "No more hiding, master."

Master Hiko seemed to shake his head slightly, then shrugged.

"It's close enough. Well, then, idiot apprentice, any more pre-wedding jitters? Perhaps you need some marital advice. How long has it been since you were with a woman?"

Kenshin shot to his feet, hair on end.

"_Master! _That won't be necessary, that it _will not!_"

"Are you sure?" His master's eyes gleamed sadistically. "Just remember: a true swordsman can make do with any length of blade, as long as he has excellent technique…"

They continued in this vein for a time, until Master Hiko felt he'd regained the upper hand, and eventually he took his leave, cloak swirling in the warm spring breeze. Kenshin saw him off, and when he said _thank you,_ _master_ he meant _my father_; and when his master responded _idiot apprentice_ he meant _my son._

* * *

After dinner, when he and Kaoru were sitting on the porch drinking tea before bed, he put his arm around her and told her about the nightmares. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face into his shoulder, and said _I'm real, I promise_.

He smiled into her hair.

He had the nightmare again that night; but when he woke up, he knew it had only been a dream.


	5. my body leaves no scar on you

**A/n: This chapter rated M, on account of the sex.**

* * *

The wedding, he was told by the guests as they left the reception, had been perfect. He wouldn't know himself, having barely been present at his last one; he and Tomoe had exchanged hurried sips of sake while the nervous priest murmured a few words and then had them sign the register. It had taken less than an hour and he had been rabbit-scared under his stoicism, wanting to run and needing to stay, unable to believe his own choices.

This wedding had begun with a procession, long and winding through the shrine grounds, and he wouldn't have known that Kaoru was in it except that she was the bride and the bride wore white. She'd looked like a doll, or a princess in a portrait from an ancient text: all rich white fabric and powdered face and crimson lips. He'd watched her float across the courtyard and wished, for a brief moment, that she was in her training clothes with her hair pulled back and a shinai on her shoulder. Because he'd wanted his Kaoru, and this wasn't her.

And then she'd gotten close enough for him to see the lines of her face under the paint: the smile that her makeup couldn't hide and the bright joy gleaming in her eyes. He'd given the wish up immediately as unforgivably selfish and foolish, besides. She was _happy_: being here, doing this, with him, made her happy. She was happy to be his bride.

The thought had filled him with a terrified awe.

He had been jolted with the sudden and terrible conviction that he'd do something wrong. Stumble over his vows, or forget a step, or spill sake down his front. _Something_ to spoil the day that she'd been looking forward to for so long and which he really had not been attentive enough about and then she was next to him at the entrance to the shrine and there was no more time.

The actual ceremony was a blur: he remembered her sitting next to him, radiating contentment; he remembered his master's fond smirk (and that had been an unexpected thing, to find him waiting to stand on the groom's side with a challenging brow, as though he expected something to be made of it). He remembered the smell of incense and the sweetest sake he'd ever tasted, and that he hadn't stumbled when he'd read the vows, and then the ceremony was over and he had not been required to attempt the western custom of a public kiss to seal the union.

Miss Sekihara had, however, arranged for the guests to engage in the western custom of pelting the newlyweds with uncooked rice as they left the shrine. Yahiko had found it particularly enjoyable, especially the fact that etiquette dictated that Kaoru ignore the very well-aimed clumps that rained down on her headdress. Kenshin had noted the gleam in her eye and sighed to himself. One day, Yahiko would learn a warrior's prudence. Today was not that day.

There had been a reception at the Akabeko: another barely remembered blur of faces and congratulations and polite formalities, when all he really wanted to do was get back home and come to grips with what had just occurred.

Of course, now that he was home he hadn't the faintest idea what to do next.

Kaoru was looking at him expectantly. She had every right to: he was the man and he had been married before and therefore, presumably, he had some idea how this all worked. But it had been over ten years, and there had only ever been the one night, long after the ceremony, in the calm wake of deadly secrets finally shared.

He had to say something, soon. So he resorted to the familiar:

"Shall this one prepare the bath, Kaoru?"

She blinked.

"Um…" Her head tilted, birdlike under her wedding garb. "If… if you want."

He nodded and almost left; then he turned back and took her hand, holding it tightly for a moment.

"You're beautiful," he said hurriedly, before his traitor tongue could trip him up, and felt the blood rush to his face. She looked up at him, flush with pleasure and the weight of her heavy clothes. Her lips parted slightly, round and soft under the powder and paint, and he wanted very badly to kiss her.

And he _could_. Fears and bloody hands be damned: she had _chosen_ him.

So he did.

It was quick and shy, and she stilled under it like a bird caught between his hands. He could feel her heartbeat under her skin and smell her perfume – her true scent, still pulsing real and vital under all the costuming. His Kaoru, who he'd wanted for so long, and could finally have…

He drew back, not wanting to frighten her, and she stared up at him with her wide blue eyes. He was suddenly very conscious of the space between them, and took a step back.

"I'll – I'll just go and – and see to the bath now, that I will," he managed to fumble out before he fled for the relative safety of the bathhouse.

* * *

Warm steam drifted from the slats in the bathhouse window as Kenshin fed wood into the fire.

"How's the temperature?" he called up.

"Fine," Kaoru replied. Water splashed. "Um… are you coming in?"

"Ah…" he had a sudden image of her stretched out in the tub, the lines of her naked body broken by the rippling water. She liked her baths very hot; she would be flushed and sweating, thin strands of hair sticking to her forehead and temples. She'd tilt her head back as she relaxed into the heat, lips parting, and droplets would run down the curve of her neck, caressing her shoulder blades and her collarbone and the valley between her breasts…

"Would you like me to?" he asked weakly.

"Well… we _are_ married now…"

"So we are. I'm coming in, then," he said, before he could think too hard about it, and went into the bathhouse.

The screen between the changing and bathing rooms was closed. He paused outside it, uncertain.

"Kaoru?"

"Y – yes?"

"Do you…?" He cleared his throat and tried again. "I mean. Shall I – join you, or…?"

"Um." There was a pause, as though she had to catch her breath or swallow. "Could you just – could you stay there? For a while?"

The sound of moving water, and he guessed that she was shifting in the tub, splashing water onto the loose-slatted floor.

"I thought – I thought I had prepared myself but I'm really, really – I'm nervous, and I want to, but I don't – well, it's – "

She spoke in a wild rush, and he could imagine the slow blush creeping up her chest to her cheeks and how her fingers were twining and catching around each other. He wanted to take her hands – he did every time she twisted them – and hold them, lace his fingers with hers and promise things he wasn't sure he could deliver. That it wouldn't hurt. That there was nothing to be afraid of. That she would enjoy it. That everything would be okay.

He sat down on the bench just next to the screen.

"It's fine, Kaoru," he said, after he took a stabilizing breath. "To tell you the truth, I may be a little nervous, too."

"…really?"

He nodded, remembered that she couldn't see him, and made an affirmative noise. _No more hiding_, he reminded himself.

"What do _you_ have to be nervous about?" she asked, and he detected a distinct hint of indignation in the question. It made him smile.

"Well, it's been some time, so it has," he said carefully, not sure how to begin. "And – you are very beautiful." And the last thing he ever wanted to do was hurt or frighten her, but he had been aching for her for so long now…

"…oh." A pause. "You mean… _oh._"

She was quiet long enough that he began to worry that he'd said something wrong.

"Kaoru?" he ventured. "Is that…?"

He wasn't sure how to finish that sentence. Wrong? Upsetting? Unexpected?

"No, nothing's wrong," she said quickly. "Nothing at all. I just – nevermind."

He blinked, sitting forward a little.

"It's just that, I mean, I don't know a lot. About. Um. What you did in the past. After the Revolution, I mean. You know. So I thought, sometimes, that maybe – anyway, I guess I was wrong. So nevermind."

"Ah." He settled back onto the bench, bemused, and was about to say something when she said, very quietly.

"I thought that maybe that was, you know, why you didn't – because maybe you liked – you were waiting for me to become more, more feminine, or cute, or elegant, or something…"

Kenshin exhaled as though he'd taken a blow.

"Kaoru…" he shook his head, forgetting again that she couldn't see him. "That's not so."

"Well, I know that _now._" She sounded annoyed at herself. The water splashed again, and he resisted the urge to slide open the screen and check on her. "But I wasn't sure…"

"Are you sure now?"

She hummed. "I guess so."

"That doesn't sound very sure."

"I know…"

"I do love you, you know," he added, surprised at how easy it was to say.

"I love you," he said again, simply because he could, and wished there was word large enough for it.

The water slapped against the sides of the tub and he heard her footsteps on the slats. The screen slid open and she was standing in front of him, still wet from the bath. She was flushed from the heat and the conversation; droplets of water swelled and rolled down her exposed skin, falling to the floor or soaking into the cloth of the bathrobe that she hadn't bothered to tie but held loosely at her breastbone. Her eyes were wide and sparkling and fixed on him and all the breath left his body in one disbelieving _whoosh_, because she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen and he wanted her as much as he'd ever wanted anything.

"…Kenshin…"

She took a step towards him, her free hand leaving the screen and going to twist around the hand that held her robe together. He stood up and closed the space between them, curling his hands around hers and easing them apart to hold them tightly in his own. Her bathrobe fell open, revealing a strip of winter-pale skin, and he couldn't stop his eyes from roaming, drinking in every stolen view.

"I love you. Kenshin," she breathed, and stepped so close that she was pressed flush against him. Whether by accident or design, she had taken a thin summer robe into the bath, and water and sweat and steam had drenched the cotton so that it clung to her like gauze and she might as well have been wearing nothing at all.

He let go of her hands and kissed her. Not shy, not soft. He kissed her the way he'd wanted to after the fight with Jin'e and almost every day since then: fierce and reverent and aching. One of his hands tangled in her hair and the other pressed into the small of her back. For a moment he thought she might pull away, and then her arms wrapped around his neck and she was pulling him down into her and kissing him back.

* * *

Somehow they made it to the bedroom, stumbling and stealing kisses and clutching each at each other every other step. She was warm and fit perfectly against him, and when they finally crossed the threshold he had just enough sense to pull her on top of him as they fell onto the futon so that she wouldn't get hurt. She leaned over him and kissed him again, hard.

"Too many clothes," she muttered, pulling at his wedding kimono. "Not fair."

He ran his hands over her shoulders, down her back, and squeezed her hips lightly before giving in and helping her get his clothes off. She straddled him as soon as they were gone, her bathrobe completely open and draping on either side of their bodies like a curtain. He stared at her, taking in the swell of her breasts and the lean curve of her waist, the delicate hollow of her clavicle and the dark thatch of hair at the delta of her thighs.

"Oh, _Kaoru_…" he whispered hoarsely.

She ducked her head – a little shy even now – and bent over him, her long dark hair hanging loose over both of them and shutting out the world.

"Um – is this alright?" she asked. "Being like this – I want to _see_ you. And touch…"

Her fingers brushed against his unmarked cheek and he closed his eyes for a long breath, asserting control, before he brought his hands to rest on her hips, under the robe this time and skin-against-skin, stroking his fingers over the smooth knob of bone.

"Anything's fine," he said quietly. "Anything at all."

She smiled then, sudden as a sunrise, and kissed the corner of his mouth. Then she kissed each of his eyes when they fluttered closed as he moaned, because the fingers of her free hand had found his nipple and were playing with it, brushing and stroking in tentative circles.

"Kaoru…"

She stopped. Why did she stop? He forced his eyes open.

"Sorry," she said, blushing. "Did I hurt you?"

"No," he murmured. "No, not at all. Don't stop. Please."

"…okay."

She bent her head to his throat. He traced abstract patterns up and down her back and buried his fingers in her hair, gasping, as she found some sensitive place right where his neck joined his shoulder that he hadn't even known existed until that moment. She kept exploring and he touched every part of her that he could reach: her hair, her face, her shoulders, stroking and soothing and shaking with desire.

She paused when she reached his hips, running one hand over his thigh, and he realized what she was considering about half a second before her delicate hand closed over his cock. He shot up into a half-sitting position, reaching out to cup her face and stroke back errant strands of hair.

"Kaoru… you don't have to…"

She looked up at him, curious and challenging, and he couldn't breathe.

"…but I want to," she said simply.

Her hands and mouth enveloped him. His head fell back and he started – he didn't know what he was doing: talking, pleading, she was taking him apart and putting him back together and he hadn't known it could be like this, that she could desire him this way. If he'd known then he never would have been able to resist her. He never should have held out: he should have kissed her that first night, the first time he'd wanted to, as she'd lain sprawled and breathless in his arms and smiled at him like he was the center of her world. He fisted his hands in the blankets, drawn taunt as a bowstring, and prayed there would be something left of him when she was done.

"Oh god, Kaoru, wait…"

Too late. The bowstring snapped. He groaned deep in his chest as warmth shot through him and the world coalesced around her, her mouth on him and her hair brushing against his thighs and her hands kneading his hips as he reached out for her, hands grasping, wanting her close to him. She pulled back, startled, and looked up him with wide eyes.

"Is that – that's supposed to happen, right?"

It took a moment for him to understand that she'd spoken, and another to figure out what she'd said. He laughed; he couldn't help it.

"Yes – although, not so quickly as that, or so I'd hoped." He drew her up and kissed her. "Although… here, let me…"

He eased the robe off her shoulders and she shrugged out of it, tossing it into the same corner that his own crumpled clothing lay in. She let him coax her down onto the futon and he propped himself up on his elbows, leaning over her, smiling like an idiot and not particularly caring as a deep lassitude sunk into his bones.

"But – doesn't that mean we're done?"

He nuzzled along her jaw, tasting the sweat and desire on her skin, and purred. The edge was off, now, and he could focus on her – on the things he didn't know yet and wanted desperately to find out, like how her strong legs would feel wrapped around him and how she would taste when she went over the brink.

"No. Not done at all."

"Oh…"

She sighed, then, and he ran his hand down her side from her breast to her hip, daring to nip at that graceful collarbone. She squeaked and flushed and her hips pumped once.

"Good?"

"Oh – _yes_," she breathed, and his fingers curled into her skin. He could smell her: salt and heady want, and for _him_. She clung to him as he lowered his head to her breasts, mouthing carefully along the soft flesh to find more places that would make her gasp. He found plenty, and she combed her fingers into his hair deeply enough that his ponytail came undone as she squirmed and panted under him.

"_Kenshin_…" She sounded immensely frustrated and he bit back a chuckle.

"Turnabout's fair play," he murmured, tracing across her abdomen and enjoying the twitch of muscle under her skin. He bent to kiss the hollow of her hip, then followed the crease of her thigh down to her center and tasted her. She cried out at his touch; he went slowly, attentive to the jumps of her hips and the pressure of her hands in his hair. His Kaoru didn't have much patience with gentle: she liked things firm and furious, and the harder he pushed her, the more strongly she responded. So he hooked her legs over his shoulders and drank from her like a man dying of thirst, discovering – to his surprise – that he really, _really_ liked it when she pulled his hair.

She stiffened and started to flood over his tongue, whimpering. He drew back quickly and replaced his mouth with his hands, wanting to see her. He had yearned towards her when his climax came; she fell back during hers, bucking and almost sobbing as her arms covered her face. He kept the rhythm going with slow, circular touches as she caught her breath and relaxed, drawing the tips of her fingers down her face as though checking to make sure everything was still there.

"…oh."

He stretched out on top of her, trailing his hand across her stomach.

"Oh?"

"I – wow." She took a shuddering breath. "So _that's_ what all the fuss is about."

He stared at her for a second, then dropped his head onto her shoulder and laughed. She shoved at him, glaring.

"It's not funny!"

He kissed her shoulder.

"I love you. And it's not funny." Another kiss. "It's perfect. You're perfect." A third. "Kaoru-mine."

He kissed her lips, then, deep and desiring, and stirred against the soft skin of her belly. His hips jerked instinctively and she rose to meet him, pulling him close.

"Then why did you laugh?" she demanded. He could hear her irritation fading rapidly into desire and kissed her again: the corner of her mouth, the bridge of her nose, the place on her hairline just beyond her temple.

"Because I love you, and I never – I didn't expect this. You're always surprising me." He cradled her face in his hands, light-headed. She was warm and yielding under him, twining her arms around his neck and wiggling upwards a little, searching for him. _Wanting_ him. He pulled away from her a little, to give her more freedom to move.

"Is that good?" she asked breathily.

"I told you – it's perfect." He nuzzled the curve of her neck, biting a little just to feel her shudder and hear her moan.

"So – are we going to – you know – _properly?_"

"Properly?" He mimicked her tone, smiling against her skin. "Was what we just did _improper_, Kaoru-mine?"

She slapped his shoulder lightly. "Oh, you know what I mean!"

"I do at that," he mused, nibbling his way up and down her throat and enjoying her little gasps, and way she kneaded at him. "Are you sure?"

She took a shuddering breath. "I – I want to. I want to – feel you. Um." Her voice lowered until she was almost whispering. "Inside..."

Blood roared in his ears and he crushed his mouth to hers, pulling her hips up and _down_ and then – oh, there she was. And there he was, with her, within her. Sword and sheath. He gasped in her ear, murmuring incoherent praise, and she rolled her hips to settle him inside her, breathing hot and heavy across his temple.

"Oh – oh, I didn't know – "

He closed his eyes while she figured out what to do with her legs, pressing his face to hers as she wrapped them tight around his waist, holding him close.

"Ah. Kaoru…"

She moaned his name and clutched at his shoulders and they began to _move_, as though they were one creature long-separated and finally rejoined. He slid a hand under her hip, lifting it for a better angle and _there_, that made her arch and cry out, that was what she needed and he needed her to be like this, writhing and moving in time with him as they pressed frantic kisses on each other. He fell down on one forearm, his auburn hair falling around them in a veil, and pushed harder and deeper into her and she rose to meet him every time until his world exploded, again, and he knew by her cries and the slowing rhythm of her body under him that she had followed soon after.

He had just enough energy and presence of mind to roll off her instead of collapsing. She helped him pull the blankets up from the bottom of the futon – both of them were shaking – and as soon as they were both covered he fell back onto the pillow, curling around her and sighing. He felt boneless, graceless and loose, wrung-out and empty and beyond caring about anything except the woman in his arms and never, if he had any say in it, leaving again. She burrowed into his chest, planting a single kiss above his heart like a brand.

"Thank you," he heard her say after a few moments

"…what for…?" he asked muzzily, already half-asleep.

"Loving me," she said. He pressed a kiss in her hair.

"Thank you," he murmured. "For the same."

* * *

They slept late the next morning, until their growling stomachs wouldn't let them sleep any longer, and even then it seemed like too much effort to cook. So they lay on the porch and fed each other leftovers from the reception and the last of the dried winter fruit, stopping occasionally to pluck cherry blossom petals out of each other's hair.


	6. in the name of something new

Kaoru told him she was pregnant in mid-summer.

It really shouldn't have comes as a surprise; it _was_ one of the better-known consequences of being unable to keep your hands off your wife for more than a few hours at a time. He'd thought that his desire might become manageable with time – just as the flutter in his chest had grown less distracting as he had become more accustomed to her smile – but instead it only grew stronger with every touch and embrace, every soft cry and each moment when he came apart in her arms.

He'd tried to explain it to her, once, and fumbled over the words. She'd pinned him on his back and glared, holding his shoulders down and demanding to know if this was _another one of_ _those I'm-not-worthy things._

He'd protested, laughing, and she'd kissed him long and slow and sweet and had nearly driven the topic of their conversation right out of his head when she'd finally broken it off, touching her forehead to his and had asked him what he meant to imply about _her_, when she loved him, and he kept insisting he was unworthy?

_Do you really think I'd give myself away so lightly?_

He'd wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her down against him, trying again to explain: that it was like the terror of breaking something fragile given into clumsy hands that had never touched anything so precious.

_I'm not_ _fragile_, she'd muttered, indignation sparking in her eyes, and he'd had no response except that it was how he felt, and he couldn't help it, and she had pushed him down on the futon again and called him an idiot. _You're the first thing I ever wanted just for myself, you know_, she'd said, and his breath had caught at the tenderness in her eyes.

His hands had run up her back, over her shoulders and down her arms and he'd held her small hands in his and kissed her knuckles and her calloused palms, feeling her heartbeat in her wrists and tasting the salt of her skin.

_You were my first selfish wish_, she'd murmured again.

Now he took her hands in his, again, and his heart fluttered in time with hers.

"…You're sure, that you are?"

She nodded. "I – it's been two months since I last had my courses. So I went to Dr. Oguni, and he said it's probably almost definitely a baby. I mean, he says that it won't show for a while, but there are other signs. I've been so tired, and my breasts are sore…"

"They are? You have?" He sat up a bit straighter, stung. "Why didn't you say so, that is?"

She blushed. "I thought it was – for other reasons. It didn't occur to me until I missed this month's…"

If that was intended to mollify him, it wasn't working. He frowned and opened his mouth to say something – she should have _told_ him, even if – _especially_ if she thought it was because of him. Although it seemed it was his fault either way, and at the thought (which wasn't even that funny, to be honest), he felt a slightly hysterical laugh try to bubble up and had to stomp it down. He must have made quite a face, because she looked suddenly aghast and tried to pull away.

"Do you… not want it?" she asked, and the hurt in her eyes was too much to bear.

"No! That is, yes – this one – I _want_ children, Kaoru. It's only – this one thought it would happen later, and we'd have more time to prepare, and – " he swallowed and tightened his hands around hers, pulling her closer. "…and I don't know what to _do_, that I don't."

"Me neither." She squeezed his hands back, face bright again. "I think it's one of those things we're supposed to figure out together."

He cleared his throat. "What else did the doctor say, then?"

"Well, he was a little worried because I didn't realize it for so long. He wants me to be very careful for the next month, until it's safer. I'm supposed to avoid stress and cold foods and strenuous activity, anything that might disrupt the baby. And other than that…" she shrugged. "He said that I'm young and healthy and strong, so as long as I avoid strain and stay positive, everything should be fine."

She smiled, a little tremulously. "I suppose I'll have to close the dojo, again."

And then, quite unannounced, she burst into tears and toppled into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, murmuring in dismay.

"It's fine, my Kaoru, everything's fine, so it is, please don't cry …"

Kaoru wailed something incoherent about _babies_ and _Yahiko_ and _the worst teacher ever_, and he had no idea what was upsetting her so all he could do was hold her and rock gently, stroking her hair, until her weeping subsided.

She sniffled and dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. He smoothed an errant strand of hair from her face and kissed her tear-stained cheeks, keeping her close.

"Tell me what's wrong."

"Oh… I'm not sure, I just – the dojo's been closed so much, first for the wedding, and now for this, and I _promised_ Yahiko and I've been neglecting him and I just suddenly couldn't _stand_ it and – I don't know why I started crying like that."

"Ah." He thought for a moment. "Well, what if you only watched him practice and gave corrections? Surely you can teach him without having to do anything yourself, at least a little, so you can."

"I…" She rested her head against his chest, her hand digging into the cloth of his kimono. "Now why didn't I think of that?"

"You have a lot else on your mind, so you do." He leaned back on his hands, letting her sprawl against him from her seat in his lap.

"So I do…" she echoed. He cleared his throat.

"On that note… Kaoru, what should this one be doing, that is? With regards to announcing the news, and so on. You shouldn't have to worry about such things in your condition, you should not."

She hummed against him, fingers tracing over his skin through his clothes in a very distracting way.

"Well, we shouldn't tell anyone until the third month is over, it's bad luck… we have to go to the shrine during my fifth month for the belly-wrapping ceremony. And, um…" she looked up at him, with that heart-rending expression she used when she wanted something and wasn't sure it was alright to ask; the one that made him want to promise her the moon and stars. "Could I have your spare kimono to wear around the house? It's silly, but I remember Tae saying that if you wear your husband's clothes in the third through fifth months, the baby's more likely to be a boy… and I'd really like a son."

"You would?"

She wrapped her arms around his neck, and began to nibble. "Mmm-hmm. A son. With your hair. I've been thinking about names, too. What do you think of Kenji?"

"It's a very fine name, that it is." Although right now he would have agreed to name the child anything, if it meant she would keep doing what she was doing.

"…and Kasumi for his sister… a boy should have a little sister to look after, don't you think?"

"That sounds fine, so it does." He weighed the feasibility of getting indoors against the odds that anyone would be happening by soon, and rapidly decided that if someone _did_, it would be their own fault if they forgot to knock.

"…I think two little sisters might be a bit much, but brothers can be so envious of each other. What do you think?"

"…oro?"

* * *

Kaoru started to show in autumn.

They had made their announcements a week ago: to Yahiko as soon as superstition allowed, because he was closest to their hearts and he most deserved to be the first one told. Then they'd sent letters to Aizu and Kyoto, and couldn't send one to Sano because only he knew where he was, but they'd lit a stick of incense and kept him in their prayers. Next had come Tae and the Uramuras and the Maekawas, and assorted other neighbors who stopped by as the news slowly spread. He had been surprised, again, by how many people knew them; by how he had become part of the landscape of so many lives, all unknowing. When he'd told Kaoru that night, over after-dinner tea, she'd smiled and asked him what he'd thought would happen, exactly, when he decided to make this place his home?

He'd taken a long, silent sip. _I don't know_, he'd said at last. _I've never really had a home before._

There had been no more talking that evening, just her warmth curled into his side, his arm around her, and the taste of salt on the wind.

A few days later he was doing the laundry while Kaoru sat sewing on the porch, humming some lullaby, his spare kimono wrapped around her shoulders. He looked up as she murmured something disgruntled and stood, stretching her back. Her rounding belly showed under her summer yukata and it suddenly hit him: _that was his child_.

The sheet slipped from his hands and fell back into the laundry basin with a wet slap.

"Kenshin?" She turned to look at him, puzzlement in her eyes, then abruptly jolted forward and sat down hard.

"What's wrong?" He was on the porch before he finished the sentence, crouching in front of her and lifting her chin to examine her face. Her body said: _pain_. But her face was lit with joy, and she raised a hand to cover her mouth in shocked pleasure even as she hunched over again.

She grabbed his hand and pressed it against the swell of her stomach.

"Kaoru, what is it…?"

And then. Under his hand. A flutter and a press against her skin, against his hand, and then a healthy _shove_ and his eyes widened as he realized what it was. That he was holding his hand against _his child_ in her womb. There was the rabbit-beat of her heart and their child just underneath it, a second soul inside her brightness, soft counterpoint singing and growing and reaching for the sun, and part of it had come from _him_ but there was nothing unclean about it.

She wrapped her arms around him, pressing their joined hands against her stomach as the baby fluttered.

"…I didn't know," he said at last, resting his head on her shoulder. "I didn't know."

"Neither did I." She was crying, and he wasn't, and he couldn't think why that was.

Carefully, he brushed her tears away. His wife, wearing his clothing, holding his child within her womb. He'd never thought he'd be the type – had never thought he'd have the chance to find out – but it filled some deep, hollow place inside him that he hadn't known existed. Her, the child, this place: they were his, and he was theirs, and he was allowed to feel that way.

His child kicked once more, for emphasis, and finally stilled. The small life settled under his fingers.

"…he's sleeping," Kenshin murmured, irrationally afraid of waking the child even as a smile broke across his face, so ridiculously huge that his cheeks ached with joy. "Kaoru, our child's sleeping."

"I know," She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it, "He's awfully jumpy, isn't he? I guess he gets it from you."

Not much laundry got done that day.

* * *

His son was born towards the end of winter.

He woke, nose cold, to Kaoru shaking his shoulder and blearily pulled himself out of sleep. She was hunched over, one hand pressed against her swollen belly, and as he opened his mouth to ask what was wrong she cried out and bit her lip so hard it bled, and he barely had time to squeak out a surprised _oro?_ before understanding hit him. The next second he was up and pulling on his clothing, heart pounding in his chest.

Dr. Oguni had takenone look at him – man with a pregnant wife looking like he'd been run over by a horse standing at his door in the middle of the night – and grabbed the little bag he kept by the door, calling for his assistant to fetch the midwife as he'd begun to stride towards the dojo.

The doctor and the midwife had muscled him out of the bedroom as soon as they arrived, ordering him firmly to bring a tray of food – Kaoru would need the energy. He'd let himself be muscled, fleeing to the kitchen with shaking hands as he'd tried to remember what he was supposed to bring her. Warm foods, strengthening foods – mochi and eggs and rice and weren't green vegetables supposed to help or was that only afterwards? He should start making some now, to have it ready when the time came. And the doctor would want tea – should Kaoru have tea? Well, there was tea if she was allowed. Water, he should bring a jug of water, too.

The dishes clattered together as he put them haphazardly on the tray. It was so _silent_. Straining, he could just make out the low murmur of voices and Kaoru's labored breathing. Was that good or bad?

He walked back as quickly as he could without spilling anything. The door slid open as he arrived; the midwife had been watching for him.

"Mr. Himura!" she gasped in surprise. "Oh, that's so much! Here, let me."

She took most of it, set it down, and then the rest.

"That will be very much enough, Mr. Himura; now just try to stay out of the way," she said, not unkindly, and went to shut to door over his protests.

Kaoru's face was contorted in pain. As the door slid shut, he saw her fall back on her elbows and struggle her way up. She let out a low, anguished moan.

He pulled the door back, unbalancing the midwife. She nearly fell and he caught her apologetically, setting her back on her feet before he knelt behind his wife and draped his arms around her shoulders, catching her hands in his. Kaoru collapsed gratefully against him, panting, and he looked up at Dr. Oguni and the midwife, challenge filling his bones and flaring in his eyes.

"Forgive this unworthy one," he said mildly, as another wave hit Kaoru and she squeezed his hands until his bones creaked. "But I will not leave her, that I will not."

The hours that followed blurred in his memory: Kaoru's face, bright with pain as she struggled to ride the rising tide, her grip tight on his hands and later, his arms. Wiping the sweat from her face and helping her drink and eat, so that she would have the strength to bring their child into the world. Shouldering her weight as she walked in slow circuits around the house and every step made her wince, because she insisted she that she needed to and the midwife concurred. Dr. Oguni's absolute serenity and the midwife's calm encouragement, the two things he clung to as her labor wore on and on and panic started to bloom inside him, because the human body – _Kaoru's_ body – couldn't possibly bear this relentless pain. But they kept saying that everything was fine, there was no problem, she was doing beautifully, and he repeated the words to her in a daze as she went somewhere he couldn't follow.

And then, at last, the midwife nodded to Dr. Oguni and he took her place at the end of the futon.

"Ah, here the little one comes now," he said, entirely too jovial even with his tired eyes. "Only a bit longer, Kaoru my girl, just a few more big pushes…"

"When I say," the midwife said, kneeling at Kaoru's side and placing a hand on her stomach. "Look at me, Mrs. Himura. Push when I say."

She stared at the midwife, blank-eyed and bewildered, and he knew that look; she was holding on by a thread, and that thread was fraying.

"It's almost over, Kaoru-mine," he whispered in her ear. "Look at Ms. Yamada, love, just do what she says."

"Almost… now, _push_. Now, Mrs. Himura!"

Kaoru's head fell back against his chest. Her eyes closed and he felt her tense, pushing hard against the futon and her body's own reluctance.

"Again!"

Another massive contraction, and she was weeping now. Her hands clamped down around his arms, bruising him straight down to the bone, but it was still only a fraction of the pain he could see written in her face.

"Again!"

"Nearly there," Dr. Oguni said from somewhere very far away; Kenshin's world had shrunk to Kaoru, to her anguished face and her grip on his arms.

"It's going to be alright," he told her, believing it was true because he had to and because if it wasn't, Dr. Oguni and Ms. Yamada would be panicking, and there was nothing in their faces or the marrow of their souls that told him anything was wrong. So it _would_ be alright; it was unthinkable for it to be otherwise.

"Once more, Mrs. Himura!" the midwife said sharply. "One more time! _Now!_"

Kaoru screamed – one time, the _only_ time in her entire labor – and he sensed in the shaking that went straight down to her core that this was _it_, the end, she had nothing left to give. Her body went rigid as she howled, bearing down –

And then she stopped, collapsing bonelessly against him. But the wailing continued in a higher pitch. He looked up from her slack face to see Dr. Oguni cradling a small red human who was kicking and waving its fists, shouting indignation at the lightening skies.

"Ah, so healthy." Dr. Oguni smiled, the corner of his eyes crinkling as he wrapped the child quickly in a blanket. "Very good, very good indeed."

"Doctor…" Kenshin's throat was dry, and the words stuck there. He swallowed and tried again. "Dr. Oguni. The baby…"

"Congratulations, Mrs. Himura, Mr. Himura," the midwife said, taking the bundle from the doctor and carrying it gently to the head of the futon. "You have a healthy son."

Kaoru's eyes fluttered open when she spoke and he realized that she had only been dazed. He felt her preparing to sit up before she actually tried and wrapped his arms around her waist, scooting forward to push her up so that she didn't have to exert herself.

"Let me see him," she said, and even in her obvious exhaustion there was a calm steel there that he had never heard before. "I want to hold my son."

"Of course. Here," The midwife slid his son gently into Kaoru's arms, and she took her baby as if she had always known what to do. "You should let him nurse…"

But Kaoru was already pulling at the collar of her robe. Kenshin lowered it for her, and the rest of the world faded into so much background noise as his wife put their son to breast for the first time. He was such a little thing, red and wrinkled with his eyes pinched shut, groping for her nipple and quieting only after he'd latched on. She winced.

"Oh my, he's strong…"

One of Kenshin's hands drifted up from where it had been spread across her hip, hesitating over their son's small head.

"Kaoru, may I…?"

"Of course," she said, laughing a little. "He's your _son_."

He touched the very tips of his fingers to his son's forehead. The boy's skin was so soft, fragile, like new rice paper or the surface of a still pond. Kenshin's chest ached and his eyesight blurred. He rested his arm along Kaoru's, cradling their son with her, keenly aware of the lives he held in his arms – the lives that trusted him beyond reason and measure – as Dr. Oguni and the midwife politely averted their eyes from the tears on his face.

* * *

About a week after Kenji was born, it rained. It was the first rain since last fall, and it heralded spring: a warm, cleaning rain that washed away the snow and prepared the cold soil for the growing seasons. Kaoru was sleeping, so he took their son and sat just inside the living room, door open to let the clean rain-scent in and little Kenji carefully bundled to keep him from catching a chill.

He sat there with his son in his arms – the small, clean life that he and Kaoru had made – and thought _this is the first rainfall since my son was born._


	7. epilogue: live your life as if it's real

**A/n: Psst. Hey. Whoever wrote _Reflections._ Guess what. **

**_Mine's better than yours_.**

**this has been your daily moment of random _Reflections_ hate**

* * *

He had measured half his life in endings: in the last glimpse of his parents, the last grave he'd dug, the last gasp of his victims and the last look at his master's back as he'd walked away. There had been a time when he'd believed that endings were the only thing in him.

There were so many firsts, now. Even things that should have been an end, like passing on his sword, had held beginnings inside them. First kisses, first smiles, first scraped knees and bedtime stories; each child's first fumbling steps towards self and self-knowledge and their first, inevitable failures. The first time he'd found a grey hair nestled in the auburn, and Kaoru's horrified reaction – which still ranked as one of the funniest things he'd ever seen, although he didn't dare tell her that.

And soon there would be another first: his eldest son's fifteenth birthday, which would have marked him as a man in the old way of doing things. Kaoru had scheduled his rank test for the first level of mastery to coincide with it, and Yahiko… well, he still wasn't entirely certain that Yahiko's plan was wise. Not certain at all.

"_Dad!_" Kasumi ran towards him, wailing. It had terrified him at first, the way that children cried; but he'd learned to distinguish real pain and fear from need-for-attention and mildly-upset and really-gross-bug and any other of the dozen reasons his children might send up hue and cry. "_Da-ad!_ Kenji's being _mean!_"

"Is that so?" He started to crouch in front of her. Then his joints made an odd popping sound and he thought better of it. "What happened, that is?"

"He's training in the dojo and he won't let me _in!_"

"Now, now," Kenshin patted his daughter's head, gazing ruefully at her pouting face. Stubborn as her mother, this one, although Kaoru claimed she got it from him. "Kenji has a very important day tomorrow, and he wants to be prepared, that he does. So why not let him be alone for a little while?"

"But I'm _bored_," she insisted, hitting that pitch unique to begging dogs and small children. "Chouko 'n Midori are on a trip, 'n Reiko doesn't want to play, she says all we do is baby stuff…"

Here was the heart of the issue, he suspected: Reiko had been Kasumi's best friend since they were small, and now Reiko was growing older just a bit faster. Kasumi would catch up in time, but try explaining that to a heartbroken eight year old. Kenshin sighed, very quietly.

"Well, Reiko has the right to think such things, that she does," he said, sitting down on the porch and setting aside the vegetables he'd been taking from the garden to the kitchen. "Although that still leaves you without a playmate, so it does. What shall we do about that?"

It wasn't that he didn't know how this ended: with him, in the yard, playing with his daughter until Kaoru came home or he absolutely couldn't avoid starting dinner any longer. But the unfortunate fact was that he was getting _old_, and his knees and back weren't quite up to the kind of rambunctiousness his youngest asked of him on a regular basis. Even with the Hiten Mitsurugi – even with Megumi's near-miraculous treatments – his body had still added up all the broken bones and bruises and started presenting him with the bill around the time he'd hit forty. So he was stalling. Cowardly, yes, but discretion was the better part of valor.

Kasumi climbed up on the porch and hugged him. He settled one arm around her, perfectly content.

"What's so important about a stupid rank test, anyway?" she muttered, "Kenji's had like a million of them and he always passes."

"Ah. Tomorrow isn't an ordinary test, that it's not. It's your older brother's birthday, too."

"So?"

"So…" and here he made a quick decision, and leaned over to whisper into his daughter's ear. "So, he _may_ also be getting a very _special_ gift from Uncle Yahiko, that he may. But it's a secret, so it is."

She was awed, first, because she'd been let in on what the grown-ups were planning. Then the awe turned into a lingering, not really serious irritation at not being the center of attention. And finally, she became suspicious. He read all that in the shifting blues of her eyes – exactly like her mother's – right down to the firework-crackle when she believed she'd spotted the flaw and decided that she'd been had.

"…but if it's a secret, then why is Kenji practicing so hard?" She crossed her arms and sat back on her heels, sticking her imperious nose in the air and clearly determined not to be easily won out of her sulk.

"He knows tomorrow is special, he does," Kenshin explained patiently. "He doesn't know why it's special, not yet." He leaned in and tapped the end of her nose, grinning. "So you shouldn't tell him, you should not."

She eyed him suspiciously, then got to her feet.

"…fine. But if it's special, then does that mean I get to wear my festival clothes?"

"If you want."

"Yay!" She clapped her hands. "I'll go hang them up right now so they aren't wrinkled tomorrow! That's what mommy always does, right?"

"Yes, yes…"

And she was off, pelting down the porch towards her room. Kenshin chuckled as he watched her go and marveled that her problems could be solved so easily: a hug, or a few kind words, or the promise of a special treat. She'd never gone without, never known a hurt that couldn't be soothed away, never been more than a few minutes from someone who would pick her up and dust her off and see that she was safe.

He cracked his back, wincing, and went to check on Kenji. His son _had_ been holed up in the training hall all day, come to think of it, and that wasn't healthy.

The dojo was closed, and from inside it he heard the whistle of a wooden sword through the air, the low thud of feet against the floor, and the occasionally hard pant as Kenji executed a particularly difficult move. Kenshin knocked on the door.

"Go _away_, Kasumi," Kenji shouted. "I'm busy."

"One only wanted to see that you were not tiring yourself much, that I did," Kenshin said. "It would hardly be any good if you were too sore to move tomorrow, it would not."

The door slid open.

"Father."

Kenshin hadn't spent much time looking in mirrors when he'd been a young man. But he had caught glimpses, quick flashes in decorative brass and streams, wells and buckets of water, in ice and in the eyes of those around him. It hurt his heart, in a strange, proud way, when he looked at his eldest son and saw himself staring back across the years.

"It's been almost the whole day, that it has," Kenshin said gently. "Perhaps it's time to rest?"

"I…" Kenji closed his eyes. "You're right."

He pushed the doors the rest of the way open and went to put his practice sword away. Kenshin followed him into the dojo, standing quietly in the doorway while his son went about cleaning the floor and storing equipment.

It had been Yahiko's idea, to pass the sakabatou on to Kenji on his fifteenth birthday as it had been given to him. Kenshin had frowned, uncertain, when Kaoru and Yahiko presented him with the plan. Kenji was so young; rash and reckless and wild, convinced he could fix the world with the edge of a blade if only he was strong enough.

_I know he's not ready for it_, Yahiko had said. _That's why he needs it. It was the same for you and me, right?_

But what had he fought and sacrificed so much for, if not a world where his son would never need to bear live steel?

_Don't you still need it?_ he'd asked Yahiko, finally, and Yahiko had shaken his head and smiled.

_Nah. It's too light for me, these days._

"So," Kenji said, too casually. "What is it that you've got planned for tomorrow?"

"Oro?" Kenshin blinked, and tried not to look like he was covering. "Whatever do you mean, that is?"

"I'm not stupid. I know you're up to something – you and mom and Uncle Yahiko." Kenji turned to face him. "What are you planning?"

Such an odd mix of feeling in his face: annoyance at being treated like a child, a child's excitement at what the surprise _could_ be, an adult's fear of what it _might_ be. It had been so much easier when he was a boy and the moodiness could be teased out of him, but his son was growing into manhood now, and straining for an adult's dignity.

"Now, now, Kenji," Kenshin said, putting his best grin forward. "If one told you that, it wouldn't be a surprise, it would not."

"Can I ask for something?"

Kenji's eyes were serious and almost sad; and there was that strange pinching in Kenshin's heart.

"Of course."

"If I do well, tomorrow…" Kenji swallowed and tilted his head forward, hiding his eyes behind his bangs, and it was like looking in a mirror that showed him the past. "Instead of whatever you're planning… can you tell me something?"

"Tell you what?" But he knew the answer even as he asked.

"The – about the things that mom and Uncle Yahiko and all the rest know, that I _don't_ know. About – who you were, _really_ were, back in the Revolution. How you and mom and everyone met. The _real_ story."

"Ah, Kenji." There was a lump in his throat, strange and hard and refusing to budge. "That's not an easy thing to tell, it's not."

"I know," Kenji said, so fierce and so terribly young. "But I'm tired of just knowing bits and pieces. I want to know – I want to know where I came from."

Such fear in his voice.

_From love_, he wanted to tell him. _From love, always, and isn't that enough?_ Yet he knew his son, knew the pride and the passion that drove him, and had always known that one day, he'd want to be told. Need to be told.

He just hadn't wanted it to come so soon.

He nodded anyway.

"Tomorrow," he said, heart aching. "If you do well."

Which, of course, Kenji would.

They left the dojo together and were halfway back to the house when a joyful, earsplitting shriek pierced the air. Father and son exchanged a look and hurried over to whatever had Kasumi so overwhelmed. They found her being tossed in the air by her very most favorite uncle – who was all the more adored for being so rarely seen.

"Sano," Kenshin said, "Welcome back."

"What's up?" He grinned, lanky and rawboned as ever, and Kenshin smiled, because even when Sano changed – and he could feel some deep change in him this homecoming, like the shifting of a tide – he stayed exactly the same. "Did I miss the birthday?"

"No, it's tomorrow," Kenji said, shaking his head and smiling. "I'm glad you could make it."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world, kiddo." Sano ruffled Kenji's hair – he was one of the few people left who could still get away with it, mainly through sheer height. "Hey, is Foxy gonna be here?"

"She couldn't make it, she could not. But she said to send you to her once you arrived, so that she could see to your hand." Kenshin looked up at his first and oldest friend, resisting the urge to shield his eyes. "Did you get taller?"

Sano grinned down at him, cracking the knuckles on his bandaged right hand. "Dunno. Maybe you shrunk, Mr. Family Man."

"Yes, yes…"

"Ran into the little lady down by the docks as I was coming in," he went on to say, a bit too casually.

"Kaoru?" Even now, after all these years of peace, a touch of fear stabbed through him. "What on earth was she doing there?"

"Scraping my son off the sidewalk," a voice said tartly from somewhere behind the crowd at the gate.

Kenshin stepped past Sano and saw his wife supporting Shinta as he limped up to the threshold. He was bruised and battered, and his glasses dangled precipitously at the end of his nose. Kenshin's heart nearly stopped.

"Shinta!"

"Don't worry, Dad." Their younger son smiled up at him, barely hiding a wince. "It's not that bad."

"What on earth happened, that is?"

"Nothing, really, nothing important."

"It was those boys from his class again," Kaoru informed them, eyes snapping. "Arrogant little brats – I ought to – "

Shinta untangled himself from his mother, stepping back with alarm in his face. "Mom, no! You'll make it worse!"

"It wouldn't be so bad if you'd just fight back for once!" Fear was getting the better of her, and her temper was rising. "Why do you let them beat you up? Don't you have any pride?"

"That's not it – "

"Now, now," Kenshin said hurriedly, interposing himself between his wife and his son. "Shinta has his reasons, so he does, I'm sure."

"Kenshin, they're going too far! He could be seriously hurt one day!"

"Ah…" He turned to Shinta. "Shinta, is there anything you can do…?"

Shinta shrugged. "Stop being smarter than they are?" he said bluntly, and there was something that could have been anger but was mostly resignation in his eyes. "I _try_ not to show off, but Mr. Ichijo always picks me, because he knows I'll do a good job. What should I do, fail?"

"You _could_ fight back," Kenji eyed his brother, sighing in irritation. "It's not like you don't know how."

Shinta pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and smiled; his _I'm-thinking_ smile, odd and shielding, meaning that whatever was going on, it wasn't _that_ important, really, but if everyone could please just leave him alone for a while?

"But I hate fighting," he said calmly, and Kenshin's heart clenched. His youngest son, the quiet one, who had once said – when Kenshin asked if he wouldn't at least continue training privately, just to please his mother – that he couldn't strike a blow without imagining what it would feel like to be struck.

"They don't seem to care," Kenji pointed out. Shinta shrugged.

"Exactly. If I fight back, they'll just get angrier. Since they don't care either way, what good does fighting do?" He bowed to Sano. "Good afternoon, Uncle Sano. Long time no see."

Sano was regarding Shinta with a strange light in his eyes. "Same to you, kid."

"Excuse me, everyone, but I should really get cleaned up." Shinta bowed again. "I'll see you all shortly."

"I should change, too." Kenji sketched a bow to the adults. "Mom, Father. Uncle Sano."

"Dress nice," Kaoru said absently, looking after Shinta's receding back with worry written plain on her brow. "We're going to the Akabeko tonight, to celebrate Sano's return."

"Yes, Mom." Then he left, high ponytail swinging.

"Mom, mom!" Kasumi tugged at her mother's kimono, and Kaoru reached down to pick her up.

"Oof! You're getting big, Kasumi dear."

Kasumi squirmed in her mother's arms. "Daddy said I could wear my festival clothes tomorrow because it's an important day," she said, all in a rush. "So I took them out and I hung them up just like you always do and Uncle Sano's never seen them so can I show him _pleeeeeease?_"

"Huh?" Sano scratched the back of his neck. "Uh… little miss, I'm not exactly a fashion maven…"

Kaoru shot him a look. _Indulge my child_, it said, _or suffer the consequences_. Sano shut up.

"It's the first outfit that Kasumi that chose all by herself," Kenshin stage-whispered to Sano. "She's very proud, so she is."

"Oh, I get it." Sano reached out for Kasumi, and she fairly jumped from Kaoru's arms to his. "Well, I make a point of never lettin' a lady down, little miss. Maybe you can teach your Uncle Sano how to dress himself, huh?"

They wandered off, Kasumi prattling excitedly, and Kaoru wrapped her arms around Kenshin, sighing with relief. He returned her embrace, closing his eyes as he breathed her in.

"Alright," she said, after a moment. "What's wrong with _you_, then?"

He chuckled. "Ah… it's about Kenji."

"When is it not?" She smiled wryly up at him. "What happened?"

Kenshin sighed. "Concerning tomorrow… after his test. He wants one to tell him – what one had hoped not to tell him, ever."

"Oh." She stepped back a little to look him full in the face. "But if he's going to carry the sakabatou, doesn't he need to know?"

He rested his forehead on hers, closing his eyes. "Yes," he said, reluctantly. "And yet…"

"You're his father," she said quietly. "He loves you, and he wants to understand. He won't stop loving you because of who you were."

"One doesn't fear that," he said, twining his fingers with hers. "One fears, rather, that Kenji will love one too much, for deeds one takes neither pride nor glory in…"

"Don't be an idiot," she said, sharply. "He's your son; he _can't_ love you too much."

"He's reckless," Kenshin argued, stung. "He doesn't understand, not yet, that a better world _cannot_ be made with strength alone – "

"Then _help_ him understand," she said, pressing a finger to his lips. "No one else could do it better. You've already – oh, love."

Her eyes softened as she traced the faded scar on his cheek. "You had to _learn_ what it meant, to truly protect others, and what strength is really for. Kenji's always known. You gave him that. And if he ever forgets, he's surrounded by people who love him, who will always find him and bring him home. He won't make your mistakes, dear." She crinkled her nose. "He'll make entirely new ones."

Kenshin laughed, softly.

"It's Shinta that I'm worried about," she continued. "He's so weak – "

"Shinta is not weak," he said firmly. "He is not a warrior. That does not make him weak."

"You didn't see it, Kenshin! They were _beating_ him, and he just curled up and _took_ it, like he didn't know how fight back – "

"But he does," Kenshin told her, carefully. "He _does_ know. Better than they do. He could have beaten them all, and he chose not to."

He raised her chin to examine her face, hoping he could make her understand. "He _chose_, Kaoru-mine. Because _he_ does not wish to do violence. They had nothing to do with it. He will find another way. He'll win them over, that he will, and without striking a single blow. Because that is the kind of person he _chooses_ to be."

She looked up at him for a long moment, an indescribable light in her eyes. Then she suddenly snickered, laying her head against his chest.

"Alright," she said, laughter in her voice. "You've got Kenji, and I've got Shinta, so which of us is going to worry about Kasumi?"

"Ah…" His eyes crinkled. He had wrinkles now, in the corner of his eyes, like Dr. Oguni; laugh-lines, echoes of smiles. "She's a girl, isn't she? So traditionally, that's you…"

"But what about when she starts attracting boys? Doesn't it fall on you after that?"

"That," he said serenely, "will never happen. One will not allow it."

"It can't exactly be stopped!"

"True," he said, sliding his arm around her waist as they began to walk indoors. "But one can always send her to live in a nunnery until she's old enough to be responsible."

"And how old is that?" Kaoru leaned her head into his shoulder, grinning.

"One was thinking sixty might be appropriate. A little early, true, but she is a very clever girl…"

Kaoru dissolved into giggles. He looked down at her – his wife – tucked against his side, belonging there. Waiting with him for their children to assemble for the walk to the Akabeko, where their friends and neighbors would be waiting to eat with them in the warming evening of a remarkably early spring. And he thought: this is real. This is a life and it is mine, and it is good.

He kissed her temple.

"Welcome home."

* * *

The next day, after the ceremony, he sat down with Kenji – who seemed so small with the sakabatou hanging at his side, and Kenshin wondered if he had looked as overshadowed – and he told him the truth.

When he was done, Kenji sat for a long moment, eyes hidden by his long red bangs, and Kenshin waited for his heart to break. Finally, Kenji looked up.

"So that explains it," he said, and pulled the sakabatou from his belt to set it on the ground between them. "Why this," and he rested his hand on the sheath. "Is so heavy."

"It will be heavy for some time, so it will," Kenshin said softly.

"And when it's light…" Kenji looked up at him, into his eyes, and he saw that his son was beginning to understand. "When it stops being heavy. That's when it's time to let it go, right?"

Kenshin smiled.

* * *

And then, at last, there were no more endings.

* * *

**Final Thoughts: So, that's done with.  
**

**Please see my author profile for a complete update, but I have two AUs planned after this, both hopefully quite long and annoyingly elaborate, which I am going to write simultaneously because I enjoy pain. One of them is quite odd, but both of them are Alina's fault.  
**

**Thank you for reading.**


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